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..and some even invent false personas!
Online Sex Drives The 'Net
By Reuters
Contributed by Rachelle Austin
On-line lovers were invited to
click-and-tell Wednesday in the first poll to probe
''cybersex'', one of the dirty secrets behind the explosive
growth of the Internet.
The poll, written by California sex researcher Al Cooper and
posted on the MSNBC Web site, asked people about their ``on-line
sexual behavior'': what they look at, who they talk to, and what
they get out of it.
Cooper, clinical director of the San Jose Marital and
Sexuality Center and an adviser on sex therapy at Stanford
University, said the survey was designed to find out more about
how people are using the Internet to fulfill their sexual needs
and answer their sexual questions.
``If you want a recipe on how to bake a cake you can ask
your mother, you can go to your next door neighbor. But if you
want some tricks on oral sex, there's really not a lot of good
places to get access to information easily,'' Cooper said.
Cooper and other researchers say sex is already the most
searched-for topic on the Internet and the quest for it is
driving the net's technological advances.
``It is a big phenomenon, but the professional community has
been a little slow in taking it seriously,'' said Cooper, who is
also an adviser on sex therapy at Stanford University.
``The Internet is revolutionizing the way we think about
sexuality ... it is dramatically changing the way we interact,''
Cooper said. ``It is the biggest thing to hit the way people
meet since bars were invented.''
People were invited to answer the survey's 47 questions
anonymously, logging on to MSNBC's Web site (www.msnbc.com).
Along with identifying their age, career, and sexual
orientation, the survey asks respondents to be frank about how
much time they spend on on-line sex, what kind of thrills they
go for most, and how they describe themselves to ``partners'' in
a medium notorious for role-playing.
Other questions that could be asked in future include
whether voyeurism in cyberspace constitutes infidelity to
whether meeting someone electronically before visually might
lead to better long-term relationships.
Charlene Laino, MSNBC's health editor, said she decided to
post the cybersex survey because it addressed two subjects sure
to pique readers' curiosity.
``Come on. Sex and the Internet are two things that
everybody is interested in,'' Laino said.
She quickly added, however, that the poll was designed
simply to begin exploration of the developing world of cybersex
and not to arrive at firm conclusions about on-line sex.
``The poll is groundbreaking because it is comprehensive and
it brings up some interesting issues,'' Laino said. ``But it is
not a statistically valid survey like you would find in
peer-reviewed journals.''
Other experts also cast doubts on the survey's usefulness as
a research tool, noting that prior polls have revealed that
large numbers of people lie online or even invent completely
false Internet personas.
``He needs a disclaimer that says 'For fun only,'''
Vanderbilt University Professor Donna Hoffman told the San Jose
Mercury News.
Cooper defended his approach, saying it was the only way
available to begin collecting data on when, how and why people
visit sex sites, ranging from pornographic picture galleries to
Internet ``chat rooms''.
``It is clearly not perfect, but it is clearly a step above
anything we've had before,'' Cooper said.
Cooper said that he hopes to get at least 1,000 ``usable''
answers through the cybersex poll, and will post the results
through MSNBC once they have been analyzed.
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